Ch, ch, changes

Changes, only if they’re good ones, right? Sign me up you say?! Hey, I’m right there with you, shoulder to shoulder, let’s make sure only the easy changes make their way to us. Well, we can all dream a little dream, nothing wrong with that. We know of course that change comes to us, invited or not. Bringing the geeky part of me forward, I could even say – “Resistance is futile.” Thank you Star Trek, bang on once again.

Changes occur, invited or not

Change is inevitable, and hopefully in every area of our life. Physically we move through all the ages and stages, in whatever body we were born with. We might make changes to it on purpose or not – think tattoos and marathon training vs arthritis or short shortsightedness. The same can be said for our mental capacity, emotional intelligence; our spiritual beliefs and understanding of the world and our place in it. Some we do and some is done to us. In our control, out of our control. Even so, we may find ourselves not quite prepared for the effects of even the happy choices.

Think about the decision to have a baby. From conception onward, a series of changes affecting every part of your life will cascade forward. Indeed the marker from before to after becomes the new normal. No longer just you, an adult of child creating age, you have now created a web of connections that are linked to the past and to the future. All future versions of your life will include this new life. Rather staggering isn’t it?

Babies don’t fear changes, why do you?

Now, let’s look at fear. Fear and babies in the same writing, that seems unlikely doesn’t it? If a baby were to fear change, then it would fight gum and nail against any of the changes that it had to undergo. Teething? Hmm. Pain, fever, swelling. No thanks. Then there is the sitting up and falling over and the standing up and losing your balance and those first steps. Lord, who would sign on for that? All of us apparently. It’s not just that we don’t know, because surely after the first few falls we do know, and yet we do it anyway. Is it purely the push of biology or is it the promise of a bigger world, only briefly glimpsed, a change in perspective?

Where does fear come from? When does the option for change and trying new things become not worth the doing? At what point do we throw up our hands and say yeah well that looks like fun, but that’s meant for those other more confident babies. Me, I’m just going to roll around on the floor cause so far this is serving me pretty well.

Change is risk. Not just physical but hey, all those other ones too. Because once you start to become that baby again, when you want to transform your world, then your life becomes a new normal.